Roust is ready for your (potentially polarizing) opinions

Five months ago we published our first story about a new Indy-based software startup that was in beta at the time called Roust — the social network for connecting with others to discuss tough topics like politics, religion, and social matters. Now, just in time for the November 3 election, Roust co-founders Mark LaFay and Nathan Frampton are offering TechPoint readers their own special portal to create an account and get started on Roust!

Virtual Town Hall with City-County Council Candidates, Oct. 29

Additionally, Roust is hosting a virtual town hall on the platform (much like a Twitter chat or Reddit “Ask Me Anything”) with City-County Council hopefuls from five Indianapolis districts coming up next Thursday, Oct. 29, starting at 7 p.m.

Each district will have its own hashtag, so those participating can aim their questions directly to their representative:

District 16 – Emily Schrock #district16

District 12 – Blake Johnson #district12

District 7 – Adrianne Slash #district7

District 2 – Colleen Fanning #district2

District 1 – Brian Jones #district1

This will be a great way for you to test out the new social platform while also getting the chance to interact directly with people who are asking you for your vote!

What makes Roust different from other social networks?

There’s a time and place for everything, and the same is true for social networks.

Most people naturally segment their use of social networks into discrete channels — a channel for work and professional colleagues like Linkedin; a channel for friends and family like Facebook or Twitter; and a channel for personal interests like cooking or shopping using Pinterest or Tumblr.

The problem most people face at some point with their social networks is a clash of personalities or beliefs when it comes to hot topics like politics, religion, or other very personal, often emotional social matters.

This is where Roust comes in. Roust is the channel for for hot topics, not just because that’s how they are advertising it, but because it has been optimized for human behavior and discussion habits.

You don’t really care what your long-lost grammar school classmate thinks of Donald Trump and you’d rather not have her posts dominating your newsfeed, but her cat videos are wicked-awesome so you don’t want to unfriend her either. If she joins Roust and has an active channel for those opinions where everybody else welcomes that content, problem solved!